Wikipedia:Peer review/Constitutional Council of France/archive2

Constitutional Council of France

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to know whether it is intelligible by a non-French person.

Thanks, David.Monniaux (talk) 09:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Uncia preliminary comments:

I've fixed up some of the wikilinks, that either pointed the wrong place or pointed to a too-generic place
Many of the sources for this article are in the French language, and this requires special care. See the policy at WP:NONENG. In particular there are several direct quotes, which you may have translated yourself; policy is to also quote the original text in these cases. It is also helpful to translate the titles of foreign works that you use as references (in addition to giving the original title); the citation templates now have a handy parameter trans_title for specifying this.
In many places the writing is unidiomatic, and I think in some cases uses an incorrect word. I'll give more details on these later.
A lot of the external links, that are used in the body as sources, are dead links, please check and correct these
Wikipedia style is not to use "bare URLs" (that is, the URL with no further information) as a citation; all works that are cited should have additional information about the title, author, publisher, date, etc. See WP:CITE#HOW.
The second paragraph in the lede is too detailed and should be moved into the body.
The lede does need more information about the relation of the Council to the other parts of government and how items get to it. Most American readers are not familiar with the French government, so it would be useful to have a very brief summary of how the government is organized (is it divided into three branches, like the American government?), and a description of where the Council fits.
Current policy is not to wikilink dates in general, see MOS:UNLINKDATES

More details will follow.--Uncia (talk) 05:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I find the citation templates really painful to use and I'd appreciate a little help. I added an introductory section on the enactment of legislation and the branches of government. David.Monniaux (talk) 13:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Uncia more detailed comments: This revised article is much better, thank you! Most of my remaining comments deal with unclear statements. Also, please remember to use edit summaries when you make changes. You don't have to use citation templates if you don't want to, as long as you provide the same information. The problem with bare URLs is that the web page often moves, and if there's no description in the article beyond the URL, it is hard to find the new page. See WP:LINKROT.

I have made a number of small changes that I believe are correct, but please check these.
I have marked some surprising statements that are apparently unsourced as "Citation needed".

The only "citation needed" tag remaining is about the legislative riders, fixed.

I'm confused about when the CC can rule on the constitutionality of statues. Part of the discussion seems to imply that this only happens before the bill is signed, but it's hard to believe that the CC's authority is so narrow. Is the bit about ruling before signing just one extra service provided by the CC, or is it really the only time they can rule?

This is correct. This was the case before the French constitutional law of 23 July 2008, which provided for a way to refer cases from courts to the Council. However. the exact method for doing so has to be defined by an organic law, and such a law has not been adopted. Thus, indeed, there is no way to refer statutes that have already been enacted to the Council, and they stay on the books even if they are unconstitutional (which is a problem especially for statutes adopted before 1958). I should probably add a discussion of that (but I'd have to re-read my bibliography first).

Does the CC make decisions by a vote? If so, do the former presidents have a vote? And is it by majority vote, or a stronger requirement?

It is a majority vote with a casting vote for the President of the Council. Added.

"deputies" is used in a couple of places without explanation: who are they? Does this mean the same thing as "member of the National Assembly"?

Yes, sorry, it's député. Fixed.

lede: it appears from the body of the article that deciding whether rules should be statutes or regulations is also a large part of the CC's job; if this is true, you should state it here.

In the early 60's, perhaps. In practice, it is quite evident from the current workload of the Council that this is a rather marginal activity. Added content.

"excess of power": This is not idiomatic in English; I think the meaning is that the executive has exceeded its authority. Fixed.
"Furthermore, the Council can quash regulations": which Council? This article is about the Constitutional Council, but the previous sentence was about the Council of State.

It's the Council of State. Fixed.

"new acts can be referred to the Constitutional Council just prior to being signed into law by the President of the Republic": who refers them to the CC? This can be read as either "the president refers them before signing", or "somebody else can refer them before the president signs". Added explanation.
"60 opposition members of the National Assembly and/or 60 opposition members of the Senate": "and/or" is not clear here. Must there be 60 from one house? If so, we would say "or". Can there be a mixture, with some from both houses for a total of 60? In that case we would say "a total of 60 opposition members from the National Assembly and the Senate".

No, it's from the Assembly or 60 from the Senate, not 60 from a mix of both. Added precision.

"whether reform should come under statute law": Does "reform" have a specific meaning here? In American legislation, reform is a very general term, where nearly any bill that changes an earlier law can be referred to as a "reform".
"France has long been reticent about judicial review": (1) When you say "France" who do you mean? The citizens as a group? The court system? (2) "reticent" is probably the wrong word here; its usual meaning is "reluctant to speak", while I think you mean "reluctant to review". Fixed.

Let's say "those who have designed the French institutions" — politicians, law professors, and so on. Fixed.

"the Council's activity considerably extended in the following decades." The CC has only been in business for 5 decades; does this statement mean that its activity has expanded throughout its lifetime (which would be a better way to put it), or can the time period be made more specific? In other words, is its activity still expanding today?

After 1974. :-) Fixed.

"the Council agreed to partial annulments": Doe this mean "in some cases" or "in all cases"? In all cases. Added precision.
"possibility to request a constitutional review was extended to 60 deputies or 60 senators": (1) same comment as above (regarding and/or): Does it require 60 of one house, or can it be a total of 60 from both houses? 60 of one house, as above.
"legislative neutrons": this is not idiomatic in English - please give the French term here too. Is neutron the right word?

This is not idiomatic in French either (neutrons législatifs). The expression was coined by Jean Foyer for clauses in law that have no legal consequences, thus are "neutral" with respect to Law. There is a list of examples of such items in in Warsmann's report. Fixed.

"The Council is made up of nine members": this is just the appointed members, right? It doesn't count former presidents. Fixed.

I think if you can resolve most of these issues, the article will be in good shape! --Uncia (talk) 16:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the detailed proofreading. I'll make the updates. David.Monniaux (talk) 17:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]